Disk drives typically use heads residing on sliders to read from and write to the magnetic media. Read and write transducers residing in the head are flown at a small, controlled spacing above the magnetic medium (disk) during read and write operations. An air bearing forms between the head and the disk due to the disk rotating at high speeds to provide controlled head to disk spacing. Magnetic fields emanating from the write transducer pole tip switches magnetization of the magnetic medium, i.e., writing to the medium. Among other factors, a smaller and more tightly controlled magnetic writing field will allow more data to be written in the same space, thereby increasing areal density.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional disk drive 10 used for data storage. Figures are not drawn to scale and only certain structures are depicted for clarity. Disk media 50 is attached to spindle motor and hub 20. The spindle motor and hub 20 rotate the media 50 in a direction shown by arrow 55. Head Stack assembly (HSA) 60 includes a magnetic recording head 30 on actuator arm 70 and positions actuator arm 70 by positioning the voice coil motor (VCM) 25 over a desired data track, shown as recording track 40 in this example, to write data onto the media 50.
FIG. 1a illustrates an enlarged view of a section of FIG. 1 including head 30 and track 40. A magnetic recording transducer 90 is fabricated on slider 80. Slider 80 may be attached to suspension 75 and suspension 75 may be attached to actuator arm 70 as shown in FIG. 2. A read transducer 93 is also fabricated on slider 80.
Referring again to FIG. 2, Slider 80 is illustrated above recording track 40. Media 50 and track 40 are moving under slider 80 in a down-track direction shown by arrow 42. The cross-track direction is shown by arrow 41.
The magnetic recording transducer 90 has a leading edge 91 and a trailing edge 92. In this embodiment, the trailing edge 92 of recording transducer 90 is the final portion of magnetic transducer 90 that writes onto the recording track 40 as the media moves under the slider 80 in direction 42.
FIG. 2 illustrates a side view of the disk drive 10 shown in FIG. 1. At least one disk media 50 is mounted onto spindle motor and hub 20. HSA 60 comprises at least one actuator arm 70 that carries suspension 75 and slider 80. Slider 80 has an air bearing surface (ABS) facing media 50. When the media is rotating and actuator arm 70 is positioned over the media 50, slider 80 floats above media 50 by aerodynamic pressure created between the slider ABS and the surface of media 50 facing the ABS of slider 80.
FIG. 3 illustrates an ABS view of a writer 300 of a magnetic recording transducer. The ABS view is the view looking at the ABS of the slider from the viewpoint of the media surface. Main pole 301 of magnetic recording transducer 300 is separated from surrounding structures by nonmagnetic gap 302 and nonmagnetic gap 305. Main pole 301 has leading edge 301a on the leading side of main pole 301 and a trailing edge 301b on the trailing side of main pole 301. A trailing shield 320 is on the trailing side of main pole 301 and a leading shield 303 is on the leading side of main pole 301. Writer portion 300 also has side shields 304 on the sides of main pole 301.
The main pole 301 is illustrated with a conventional trapezoidal shape used in perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR); however, other shapes may also be used. Pole shapes may be, for example, rectangular or triangular. Pole edges illustrated with straight lines may also be implemented as curved or faceted. Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that these shapes, combinations or variations of these shapes, and other shapes may be used.
FIG. 4 illustrates a side section view of read/write head 400 incorporating a write transducer 450 and read sensor 410. FIG. 3 depicts an ABS view of a section of writer 300 only, while FIG. 4 depicts a side section view of read/write head 400 with ABS 490, including read sensor 410 and write transducer 450. The read sensor 410 may include shield 411 and shield 413 as well as sensor 412. Write transducer 450 shown in FIG. 4 includes shield 414, main pole 401, assist (or auxiliary) pole 401′, coil 440 and coil 440′, and trailing shield 420. Main pole 401 has trailing bevel 401a. Write transducer 450 also includes leading shield 417, nonmagnetic layer 414, nonmagnetic gap layer 405, and nonmagnetic spacer 402. Other and/or different components may be fabricated in other embodiments. In some embodiments, coupling layers, stop layers and/or seed layers may also remain between layers as part of the fabrication process.